Thermal Desktop

(1)

User’s Manual

Thermal

Desktop

®

A CAD Based System for

Thermal Analysis and Design

Version 5.7

(2)

(3)

Thermal Desktop

®

User’s Manual

CAD Based Thermal Analysis and Design

Version 5.7

October 2014

This manual, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under license and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such license. The content of this manual is furnished for informational use only, is subject to change without notice, and should not be construed as a commitment by Cullimore & Ring Technologies. Cullimore & Ring Technologies assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear

(4)

(5)

C&R Technologies, C&R Thermal Desktop, RadCAD, FloCAD, Sinaps and CRTech TD Direct are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cullimore and Ring Technologies, Inc. in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. C&R Technologies, Inc., reserves the right to alter prod-uct offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typo-graphical or typo-graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2014 Cullimore and Ring Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.

ANSYS, ANSYS Workbench, AUTODYN, CFX, FLUENT and any and all ANSYS, Inc. brand, product, service and feature names, logos and slogans are registered trademarks or trademarks of ANSYS, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States or other countries. All other brand, product, service and feature names or trademarks are the property of their re-spective owners.

Autodesk, AutoCAD, AutoCAD Mechanical, Autodesk Mechanical Desktop, Inventor, and Fusion are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries.

PTC, Creo, and Pro/ENGINEER, are trademarks or registered trademarks of PTC Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and in other countries.

Siemens and the Siemens logo are registered trademarks of Siemens AG. Femap, NX, and Parasolid are trademarks or registered trademarks of Siemens Product Lifecycle Manage-ment Software Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries. All other trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks belong to their respective holders. SolidWorks® is a registered trademark of Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp.

Trademarks SpaceClaim and the SpaceClaim logo are either trademarks or registered trade-marks (“Marks”) of SpaceClaim Corporation in the United States of America and/or other countries. All other trade names, trademarks, logos, and service marks on this site are the property of their respective owners. Users are not permitted to use these Marks without the prior written consent of SpaceClaim Corporation or such third-party owners.

(6)

(7)

Prepared, distributed, and supported by:

C&R Technologies, Inc. Boulder, Colorado (303) 971-0292 www.crtech.com

Authors:

Timothy D. Panczak Steven G. Ring Mark J. Welch David Johnson Brent A. Cullimore Douglas P. Bell

(8)

Revision History

Thermal Desktop Version 5.7 October 2014 Thermal Desktop Version 5.6 June 2013 Thermal Desktop Version 5.5 February 2012 Thermal Desktop Version 5.4 February 2011 Thermal Desktop Version 5.3 January 2010 Thermal Desktop Version 5.2 October 2008 Thermal Desktop Version 5.1 October 2007 Thermal Desktop Version 5.0 October 2006 Thermal Desktop Version 4.8 October 2005 Thermal Desktop Version 4.7 October 2004 Thermal Desktop Version 4.6 September 2003 Thermal Desktop Version 4.5 September 2002 Thermal Desktop Version 4.4 August 2001 Thermal Desktop Version 3.3 December 2000 Thermal Desktop Version 3.2 August 2000 Thermal Desktop Version 3.1 November 1999 Thermal Desktop Version 3.1Beta January 1999 Thermal Desktop Version 3.0 December 1998

Thermal Desktop Beta June 1998

Variable Geometry Version 2.1 April 1998 Expanded Tutorials Version 2.0 December 1997 First Commercial

Release

Version 2.0 September 1997 Fourth Beta Version 1.2 Beta January 1997 Third Beta Version 1.1e Beta November 1996 Second Beta Version 1.1 Beta October 1996

(9)

Initial Release Version 1.0 January 1996

(10)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 5.7

The following new capabilities have been added:

General:

1. Compatible with AutoCAD 2010 through AutoCAD 2015. 2. Postprocessing improvements (Section 17):

• Multiple postprocessing layouts allowed

• Color bars can be associated with different viewports in a layout with each viewport displaying a different view and/or different layers.

• Postprocessing can be viewed along with orbit

• Multiple time points can be selected in postprocessing to display the difference (between first and last), minimum or maximum of postprocessed values

• User control of postprocessing color above maximum and below minimum values has been added

• Showing or hiding insulation temperatures can be over-ridden in viewports • Ability to show conductor and contactor temperature differences has been added • Temperature differences between two solutions can be displayed as color contours. • Heat flow from one set of nodes to another set of nodes can be displayed as color contours.

3. User-defined text editor can be used for logic and for file display.

4. Compiler and linker options for Intel Visual FORTRAN compiler can be added in the Case Set Manager (Section 15.2.6).

5. Dynamic SINDA subroutines have been added to assign integer values and character strings from SINDA/FLUINT to Thermal Desktop symbols. (Section 16.1.1)

6. Customer support tickets can be opened from within the application. (Section 2.9)

Thermal Desktop:

1. Three types of grip points are now available for Thermal Desktop primitive objects: Parameter (previously available), Key Point, and Node and Boundary. Grip Point edit-ing is a useful method for alignedit-ing a primitive to other geometry. (Section 2.10.3) 2. Grip Manipulators allow defining grip point locations based on expressions. Grip

points from multiple primitives can be manipulated by a single grip point manipulator. (Section 4.15)

3. Curved finite elements can now be imported into Thermal Desktop and used for con-duction and radiation calculations. (Section 4.3.10 and Section 4.5)

(11)

4. Composite material properties can be defined from other material properties. Compos-ites can be laminates or aggregates, where laminates can have defined layers and ori-entation (when used with material orienters and finite elements) and aggregates can have parallel or serial properties in any direction. (Section 3.2.3)

5. NASTRAN BDF importer can read node and element groups from PATRAN neutral file. (Section 18.2.3.5)

6. Finite elements can be checked for user-defined interior angle and skew. Any elements not meeting the user’s criteria are added to an AutoCAD group for review. (Section 8.12)

7. Finite difference object nodes can be individually deactivated to create an effective hole in the object. Deactivated nodes are excluded from radiation and heat balance cal-culations. (Section 4.6.4)

8. Steady-state behavior of time-varying boundary node temperatures can be specified. (Section 4.6.3)

9. Calculate free edges available from Contactor and Domain Tag Set Object list context menu (right-click).

10. Scaling factors for conductivity and density have been added to the thermophysical property data to assist with adjusting property data globally, as in test data correlation. (Section 3.2.2).

11. Element average temperatures and temperature gradients can be mapped to 1D and 2D NASTRAN elements along with grid point temperatures. (Section 18.3.2)

RadCAD:

1. A secondary alignment can be specified in heating environments to align a second vehicle axis to the planet, Sun, star or velocity vector. In addition, the velocity vector for orbits can be used for the primary or secondary alignment. (Section 6.1.1.1) 2. A new orbit has been added to allow defining the obit positions as vectors in the

celes-tial coordinate system. (Section 6.1.8)

3. Orbit controls for auto-hide planet and solar lighting have been added. (Section 6.2.1) 4. TSS animation data can now be imported.

FloCAD:

1. A heat exchanger object has been added. (Section 5.5)

2. Tie postprocessing results can be displayed on nodes and surfaces. (Section 17.1.3.4) 3. Ability to link node and lump color bars to synchronize scaling has been added.

(Sec-tion 17.1.3.4)

4. The Set Lump Initial State option in the Case Set Manager will set the void fraction for twinned lumps (Section 15.2.6).

(12)

5. A capillary pump macro has been added. (Section 5.6)

6. Ability to set reference density for pumps and turbo-machinery. 7. Postprocessing of twin lumps.

(13)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 5.6

General:

1. AutoCAD® 2013 and 2014 compatibility.

2. CRTech SpaceClaim® and Mesh Generator for SpaceClaim have been combined into a single add-in to SpaceClaim® and re-named CRTech TD DirectTM (Section 18.6) 3. A transition from Save files (*.SAV) to Compressed Solution Results (CSR)

directo-ries has been initiated. The CSR format will accommodate direct user access of solu-tion results. New Thermal Desktop models will default to write the results to a CSR directory; pre-existing Thermal Desktop models will default to write the results to a Save file. The Thermal Desktop preferences SINDA tab has an option to change results storage method. If the working directory contains a Save file and the user changes from Save file to CSR, then the Save file is removed and a CSR directory of the same name is created and vice versa.

4. New command, TdCompareDWGFile, has been added to compare the current DWG file to a user-selected DWG file. The output of the command tells the user what objects are on one file and not another and if any objects have changed so the user can see what is different.

5. Case Sets can be run in Demand Mode, run in Batch Mode, or set up for Batch Mode. Demand Mode operates interactively with AutoCAD and is the only option for Dynamic SINDA, models with node correspondence, and models with super net-works. Batch Mode run the case set, including radiation tasks and SINDA/FLUINT solutions independent of AutoCAD. The set up for Batch Mode option allows running the radiation and solution at a later time or on another computer.

6. Large Model Browser branches are automatically subdivided to improve performance and make browsing large branches easier. (Section 2.4.1)

7. Thermal Desktop commands added to right-click context menu in graphics area. 8. FE Mesh Importer can import meshes generated by TD Direct. While this allows TD

Direct models to be used without a TD Direct license, the two-way updating is not available. (Section 18.2.3.1)

9. NLOOPT field added to Case Set Manager to allow the maximum number of loop counts for transient solutions to be set separately from the maximum for steady-state solutions (Section 15.2.2.3)

10. Solution initial conditions can be specified by first time, last time, or a user-specified time for solution initial conditions. When First or last time is specified, the solution results do not have to exist. (Section 15.2.6)

(14)

12. Additional Network Element Logic keywords added (Section 2.10.10):

• For all objects: #NUM

• For Ties: #LUMPTWIN, #PATHTWIN, #PATH2TWIN • For Path: #UPTWIN, #DOWNTWIN

13. Network element logic now available in Contactors. 14. Larger bivariate tables allowed (Section 2.10.2)

15. GPRINT, LOSSTAB, ORIFTAB added to text output selections in Case Set Manager (Section 15.2.3)

16. Logic Manager User Logic has declarations field for local variable declarations 17. Symbol Manager changes (Section 11.1.1):

• <ENTER> can now be used to accept new symbols on Symbol Manager form when the New Symbol Name field is active, otherwise <ENTER> means Done with the form. • Symbol groups are added, renamed, or deleted by right-clicking on the group tabs.

18. Aim Z grip point added to assemblies

19. Energy units can now be specified as Watt-hours. With this selection, time can be in hours and power in Watts which is convenient for terrestrial systems like buildings, power plants, and scientific balloons. (Section 2.7.1)

20. When a model is saved in postprocessing mode, the paper space will be automatically adjusted when the model is opened.

1. Generate Cond/Cap for surfaces can now be programmed (Section 4.3.1.4)

2. Cutting plane improved with mapping-resolution control, translation grip point, option to display only mapped regions, solid domain tag set specification (Section 17.1.7) 3. Lateral conduction added for insulation Material Stack Manager (Section 3.2.5) 4. Mapping results to structural models can be performed at user-selected times (Section

18.3.2.2)

5. Output Expression to SINDA enabled for Effective Emissivity thermophysical prop-erty (Section 3.2.3.1)

6. Options for TEC Control Sensing added

7. Improvements made for mirroring merged nodes and swapping faces of FD solids 8. Color by Property Values model checks now include multipliers for density, Ku, Kv,

(15)

RadCAD:

1. Radiation tasks can be written out for use in batch mode

2. Added View Factor calculation to radiation tasks in Case Set Manager to allow view factors to be calculated separately from radiosity and heating rate calculations. 3. Keplerian and planetary orbits can now have date defined programmatically 4. Radiation tasks can now be edited together by multi-selection

5. COM commands added to create orbits from MATLAB for Vector list, Lat Long Alt list, Free Molecular Heating lists

6. Input checks added for error control and fast spin conflicts 7. Internal improvements to increase throughput speed 8. Added ability to export insulation faces to TSS 9. Improved TRASYS polygon import

FloCAD:

1. Gas Dissolution and Evolution data available on Lump and (S)Tube forms.

2. Anisotropic property usage for conductivity between inner and outer wall nodes for pipes has been added

3. RcPipe discretization includes upstream and downstream in addition to centered. (Sec-tion 5.4.2)

4. Flat-front Purge/Fill has been added to RcPipes (Section 5.4.2) 5. RcTie can now use Domain Tag Sets for lumps and paths

6. COMPLQ/WAVLIM functions are now available in the Logic Manager for water-hammer and acoustic wave modeling (Section 12.8)

7. VDRP/VBUB void fraction limits added to lump twin form 8. Lump Heat Load initial condition can now be plotted

Starting with Version 5.6, AutoCAD 2007, 2008 and 2009 will no longer be supported. Since the last version of Autodesk Mechanical Desktop was 2009, Autodesk Mechanical Desktop is no longer supported. Open Mechanical Desktop files using basic AutoCAD 2010 or later.

(16)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 5.5

General:

1. AutoCAD® 2012 compatibility.

2. The ability to import directly from CRTech SpaceClaim® and dynamically link to it has been added to Thermal Desktop. CRTech SpaceClaim, sold separately, provides the ability to import, create, modify, simplify and parameterize CAD geometry. The dynamic link allows updating changes to the geometry and passing parameters from Thermal Desktop to CRTech SpaceClaim. With the addition of the Mesh Generation for SpaceClaim module, SpaceClaim can be used to mark up the geometry for proper-ties, boundary conditions and meshing controls.

3. TD Mesher, the mesher built directly into Thermal Desktop, has been replaced with a more robust and faster mesher. The user interface has not changed.

4. Solutions can be restarted from previous solutions as either a completion of an inter-rupted solution or extension of the previous solution.

5. User can specify font for graphics text display.

6. Model Browser: List by Macros added; Heat Flow Between Submodels specifying ALL submodels; right click in output window added to save text to a file.

7. TdConvertToAcad command added to convert Thermal Desktop surfaces and solids to AutoCAD polyface meshes, which can then be exported to DWG or DXF.

8. Change to LOADT restarts to speed up SINDA compile

9. ANSYS importer improved to import BFE heat loads for volumetric heat. 10. User3, 4 and 5 user files added to SINDA OPTIONS.

11. ARLXCA/DRLXCA default changed to 0.001.

12. Ability to drive multiple runs for a Case Set by driving symbols from Excel added. 13. Case Set Control Reset to Defaults now shows what variables are being changed. 14. Set INSERT directories in each Case Set.

15. Color Bar option to not print data values has been added to obfuscate proprietary information in papers

16. NASTRAN anisotropic solid materials imported with material orienters. 17. TRASYS Exporter improved to have more accuracy - significant digits 18. I-deas importer improved to read in material orienters

19. TDSAVEAS54 command added to allow saving a Thermal Desktop version 5.5 model as Thermal Desktop version 5.4. Since features new to Thermal Desktop 5.5 may have

(17)

been used in the model and will not be recognized by Thermal Desktop 5.4, the saved model must be tested and the SINDA input files and results compared to be sure noth-ing has been lost in the translation.

1. Speed increase for contactor point method 2. 5-node solid pyramid finite element added

3. TECs: Steady State now defaults to percent of power; register designator string added

RadCAD:

1. Non-grey radiation can be calculated through banded-wavelength radiation calcula-tions. Optical properties can be defined as wavelength-dependent.

2. ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engi-neers) Atmospheric Extinction Modeling added to Planetary-Lat-Long heating envi-ronments. Atmospheric extinction scales the solar flux as it travels through different lengths of atmosphere based on the sun and planet locations.

FloCAD:

1. RcQflow includes FloCAD ties.

2. Path initial flow rates can be set from save files of other solutions.

3. Pipe symbol expressions can reference #LENGTH_ENG or #LENGTH_SI that pro-vide the length of the current pipe in feet or meters, respectively.

4. Network element logic in pipe forms can refer to the following special values. The val-ues will be translated to reflect the units used for generation of the SINDA/FLUINT model. The new values are:

• #LENTOLUMP - distance along the pipe center line from the beginning of the pipe to the current lump

• #LENTONODE - distance along the pipe center line from the beginning of the pipe to the current node

• #PIPELENGTH - total length of pipe

5. Lumps can be provided a void fraction (AL) or quality (XL). 6. Twinned lumps can be given non-equilibrium temperature values.

7. Twinned tank and path inputs modified to clarify usage for scaling values. 8. Pipes can now have multiple ties when using surfaces.

9. COM Commands added for Case Set LUMP restart file and exclude 10. Pipe graphics increased in speed

(18)

(19)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 5.4

General:

2. The graphics have been extensively reworked and should show significant improve-ments over previous releases.

3. Tag Sets have been added to allow assigning groups of items to network elements such as heat loads, conductors, contactors, ties, etc. Tag Sets are persistent and can have all entities replaced or removed without losing the definition of the referring network ele-ment (conductor, etc). The Tag Set Manager organizes the Tag Sets and allows assign-ment of entities to the Tag Sets.

4. The Thermal Model Data form has been renamed to Thin Shell Data since it is used exclusively for definition of thin-shelled Thermal Desktop surfaces.

5. Relative paths have been added to Thermophysical and Optical property database names.

6. An option has been added to Continuous Cycle Postprocessing to create an AVI with-out external tools.

7. The expression editor has been changed eliminating the Symbol selection in the upper right corner of the form. Symbols are now selected by right-clicking in the expression field and selecting the Symbol by navigating the menu of Symbol groups and Sym-bols.

8. A search function has been added to the Model Browser.

9. Right clicking in the Model Browser output field allows changing the postprocessing time to next, previous, first or last.

10. Negative filtering has been added to the Object Selection Filter

11. The Logic Object Manager Array Interpolation allows the user to specify the SINDA array number for the independent and dependent arrays.

12. Logic Manager User Text can be used for SUBROUTINE DATA, NODE DATA, CONDUCTOR DATA, ARRAY DATA, and CARRAY DATA.

13. User Arrays can be created in the Logic Manager.

14. Case Set Manager Copy and Change forms have User Directory and Radiation File-name added for editing.

15. Case Set Steady State solution can be specified to be before and/or after a transient solution or at each orbit position.

(20)

16. Option added to Case Set to automatically postprocess at the first, last, or current (pre-viously used) time.

17. Option added to Case Set to automatically map all Data Mappers when solution is complete.

18. Expressions for TIMEO, TIMEND, OUTPUT, and OUTPTF can be output to SINDA from the Case Set Information.

19. Color Bar enhancements to allow output of areas or volumes of displayed entities in their range.

20. Right click in Model Browser can thaw (turn visibility on for) the layers of selected items.

21. #GAREA can be used for conductor area in Network Element Logic.

22. Active Display Preferences form changed to include Tag Set Active Sides and to include a Display button for immediately viewing the desired information. 23. A Finite Element Mesh Importer has been added to allow for updating imported

meshes.

24. Logic Manager array inputs can use expressions for array values.

25. A search function has been added to property imports to find specific properties in large databases.

1. The user can specify whether to postprocess top and/or bottom insulation tempera-tures.

2. Insulation can now be made of layers of materials with each layer having a specified material, thickness and number of nodes.

3. Output added to Contactor Data files (found in the ContactorData directory in the model’s working directory) to show connected area or length and total area or length. 4. ‘ALL’ is an option for the To Submodels under the rcQflow datasets.

5. insulation temperatures can be plotted directly from the Model Browser.

6. The user can specify the node submodel when mapping elements between conics. 7. The expressions for the Density Multiplier and Cond Multiplier can be output to

SINDA for Surfaces, FD Solids, and Solid Finite Elements.

8. The Advection velocity expression can be output to SINDA for FD Solid Advection. 9. Validity checking added for surfaces and solids when Cond/Cap data is loaded. 10. The Enable/Disable capability has been added to Pressure Loads.

11. Boundary Condition Mapper has been expanded to map temperature fields and tem-perature-conductance coefficient (per area) pairs.

(21)

12. The Boundary Condition Mapper will optionally import into the current UCS.

13. An improved algorithm has been used for calculating the conductance in tri and quad finite elements. The new algorithm should improve the accuracy for radially varying anisotropic materials but should be the same for isotropic and cartesian anisotropic materials.

14. Reverse Path/Pipe/Axis direction expanded to include Node-to-Node conductors. 15. Calculate Mass command output lists mass by node submodel instead of conductor

submodel. Mass per node is written to the output file. 16. XY Plot legends can include the comment field for a node.

17. A cutting plane feature has been added for postprocessing solid models.

RadCAD:

1. Groups are created for overlapping surfaces check. Use the Model Browser and List by Groups to assist with finding surfaces that fail the overlapping surfaces test. 2. Analysis Group drop-down list added to Active Display Preferences, Optimize Cells

and Check Overlapping Surfaces.

3. Compare option has been added to the Orbit Manager to compare two orbits. 4. hrTime added to Heat rate symbols that can be output to SINDA.

5. Free Molecular Heating Orbits extended to allow for Sun and planet vectors for track-ers.

6. Heating rate output formats are: LOADQ; Auto-determine DA11MDA/DA11MC; and Force DA11MC

FloCAD:

1. Orifice paths now have control valve options. 2. Fluids use names instead of numbers.

3. Ties can now be associated with pool boiling 4. Tie edit form is smaller for low resolution screens.

5. Turbomachinery array inputs can use expressions for array values. 6. Network Element Logic access has been added to the Pipe edit form.

(22)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 5.3

General:

2. A parabolic trough Thermal Desktop surface has been added.

3. A finite difference solid ellipsoid Thermal Desktop solid has been added 4. A new and improved EZXY plotter is used for X-Y plots of data vs. time.

5. Register names in SINDA/FLUINT can now be 32 characters long. This means that symbol names can be 32 characters long even if the symbol is used to create a register. This also affects the heater append strings which were previously limited to 6 charac-ters; they are now limited to 30 characters.

6. Measures feature allows thermocouple devices to be added. Thermocouples interpo-late the temperature of an object based on the relative location to nodes.

7. Three commands have been added to Thermal > Utilities menu: toggle undo record-ing; save SINDA/FLUINT work directory; and search for text.

8. Symbols, Case Sets, Orbits, Logic Objects, property aliases, analysis groups, and sub-models (with comments) can now be imported directly from a Thermal Desktop DWG file without first being explicitly exported.

9. Model Browser has been enhanced with: list by non-graphical items (e.g. - Case Sets, orbits, logic objects, optical properties and thermophysical properties), layers, and measures; a repositionable field separator; indications for disabled objects and net-work element logic; conductor and logic submodel names for subordinate items; sym-bol group names in list by symsym-bols; contactor and TEC From and To areas; and right-click contextual menus.

10. Case Set Manager has been enhanced with: tree-based Case Set groups; drag-and-drop capability for reorganization; and right-click contextual menus.

11. Symbol manager now has Find command to help locate symbols.

12. Logic Manager has been enhanced with: tree-based organization with groups; drag-and-drop functionality; equations of motion; and time-step limits for array interpola-tion to avoid overstepping array points.

13. Symbol usage is now checked for usage consistency. The user will be notified if sym-bols are used in fields or expression editors that have different units.

(23)

1. Thermal submodel names up to 32 characters are now allowed. Many forms have changed to account for this. Submodel definition allows comments.

2. Thermophysical properties manager has been enhanced with: resizable columns; sort-ing by material name or property value; and interpolation/extrapolation of temperature dependent properties to room temperature.

3. Save files can be queried for: minimum and maximum temperatures and register val-ues; heater performance; heat flow between user-specified sets of nodes; sink tempera-tures and corresponding conductors for subsets of nodes. Save file data can be written to text through the postprocessing menu.

4. User-defined nodes can be provided a mass or a volume when material option is cho-sen.

5. Heater power can be input as a flux.

6. Warnings are provided when contactor From area is greater than the To area. This

usu-ally indicates a problem. Contactor form allows quick switching of From and To sets.

7. NASTRAN importer has been expanded to import CTRIA6, CTRIA6*, CQUAD8, and CQUAD8* elements as well as QVOL boundary conditions.

8. Solid-solid fusion capability has been added.

9. User has been provided more control over contactor restarts.

10. GLOBAL logic designator has been added to SINDA. The GLOBAL logic is called regardless of built submodels and is used as default for output calls.

RadCAD:

1. Optical properties manager has been enhanced with: resizable columns; sorting by material name or property value; and interpolation/extrapolation of temperature dependent properties to room temperature.

2. Free molecular heating has been enhanced to reference basic and Keplerian orbits with tracking and velocity vector calculation.

3. Heating rates can be computed using albedo specified as a function of latitude and lon-gitude. The calculations use a rotating planet based on the sidereal period.

4. Heating rates can be computed using planetshine specified as function of latitude and longitude. The planet is not rotated with time for these calculations. The data may be input as a temperature or a flux, and may be input relative to the planet’s latitude and longitude coordinate system, or a coordinate system constructed about the sub-solar point.

5. Diffuse Sky Solar and Diffuse Sky IR sources have been added to the Planetary heat-ing environment.

(24)

6. Latitude and longitude dependent albedo and planetshine data can be displayed in color on the planet when in orbit mode. An orbit data color bar is displayed, and may be edited similarly to other postprocessing color bars.

7. Output and Case Set names can be added to RadCAD dataset name. 8. An optical property summary has been added to the *.k and *.hra files.

FloCAD:

1. Fluid submodel names up to 32 characters are now allowed. Many forms have changed to account for this.

2. FloCAD MACRO algorithm has been improved to work with SINDA/FLUINT improvements.

3. Twin ties are now supported.

4. Pipes have been improved to support: twin lumps and twin ties; changes to subdivi-sions in multi-edit mode; specification of length subdivision using a symbol; and two materials in the pipe wall (divided radially).

5. Friction factors can be augmented from heat transfer and heat transfer multipliers can be based on friction, curves and entrances.

(25)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 5.2

General:

2. Installer available for 64-bit OS with AutoCAD 2008 and higher. 3. Finite elements can be exported to NASTRAN.

4. Symbol definition allows rules for exporting Symbol as SINDA/FLUINT Register.

1. A new built-in mesher, TDMesh, allows creation of finite elements based on Auto-CAD surfaces, regions, or solids. Finite elements can be generated as a free mesh or extruded or revolved from a surface. The mesh definition includes element size and the assignment of properties (material, radiation, etc.) to the planar and solid finite ele-ments. The mesh definition can be modified after it is created or the element and node properties modified individually. The mesh can be updated to account for changes to the underlying geometry. An Advanced Modeling Techniques Users Guide is provided in separate volume accessible from Windows Start > Programs > Thermal Desktop > Users Manual - Meshing.

2. Map objects allow Thermal Desktop postprocessed results to be mapped to an external mesh (NASTRAN, FEMAP, ANSYS or I-deas). The map object is a graphical object that can be aligned to the thermal model and copied to map multiple occurrences of the part represented by the external mesh. An interpolation routine allows different resolu-tions in the thermal model and external model.

3. The Boundary Condition Map Object maps time-and temperature-dependent heat fluxes from CFD results to the Thermal Desktop model. An interpolation routine allows different resolutions in the thermal model and CFD model.

4. Network Element Logic can be defined for conductors. The user-defined logic allows a generic block of code to be expanded for all conductors created by the conductor definition.

5. When initial temperatures are set from previous solutions, nodes can be excluded from the initialization to allow expressions to remain intact.

6. An Enabled button has been added to thermal network element (conductors, contac-tors, heat loads, etc.) edit forms to allow disabling the element by expression. Disabled elements are excluded from the SINDA input file.

7. Heater register labels can be set by the user to allow easy recognition in the SINDA/ FLUINT input file and postprocessing.

(26)

RadCAD:

1. Heat rate symbols can now be exported to SINDA as registers.

2. Radiation analysis tasks are now defined within a form instead of in the Case Set Man-ager.

FloCAD:

1. Network Element Logic can be defined for lumps, paths and ties. The user-defined logic allows a generic block of code to be applied to a group of paths or ties.

2. Lumps can now be initialized from an existing SINDA/FLUINT solution. The user has the option to exclude lumps from initialization.

(27)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 5.1

General:

1. AutoCAD® 2008 compatibility

2. Colorbar editing has been tabbed for each color bar and a visibility check box added to the form.

3. Improved import capabilities for symbols, orbits, and Case Sets: users are presented a form that allows them to choose which data to import and are also prompted before overwriting existing data.

4. STEP-TAS Version 5.2 import and export added.

5. Optical and thermophysical property names no longer have a 32 character name length limit.

6. Purge Symbols has been improved to display a list of symbols to be purged and allow the user to select which symbols to delete. The symbols are listed by groups.

1. Advection (solid mass transport) added to FD Solids 2. Heatload can now be a function of time and temperature.

3. Heater sensing can now be maximum, minimum or area-weighted average tempera-ture of sensing surface, or can be specified by user logic.

4. Proportional heater option available in steady state.

5. Material recession (melting, sublimation, non-charring ablation) can be calculated using a given rate as a function of applied heat load; this allows recession rate to be matched to test data.

6. Stray nodes will automatically be placed in a STRAYNODES group when Case Sets are run.

7. Fluid selection modified in Conductor forms for convection-based conductors. 8. Node numbers have been made easier to view with longer lead lines and color will

always contrast with background, when using black/white background.

9. Export node data now allows exporting node locations in WCS or current UCS.

RadCAD:

(28)

2. Improved database compression for less solution overhead with large models. 3. Default space temperature changed from 0 K to 2.73 K (4.91 R).

FloCAD:

1. Advection (solid mass transport) added to Pipes for pipe walls.

2. Fluid submodel properties modified to allow fluid selection by browsing. 3. Contactors available for ends of pipes.

4. Pipe contactors reflect actual edge length and area instead of using conics thin surface approximation.

5. Lump Edit Form Tabbed with Gas Dissolution/Evolution data added. 6. Path phase and species suction data tab added to edit form.

7. Tooltips for fluid objects display initial conditions when not in postprocessing mode. 8. Toolbar Icon added for Fluid Submodel Manager.

9. RcPipePlot command added to plot lump variables as function of distance along a pipe.

10. Radiation Page available for Pipe multi-edit mode.

11. Paths, Ties, FTies and IFaces can all select twin lump attachments. 12. Model Browser displays twinned lump information.

(29)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 5.0

General:

2. Multi Edit of nodal subdivision and surface parameters for conic type surfaces. 3. Visibility icons have been added to conductors, heat loads, and heater dialog forms. 4. An icon has been added to conductor, heatload, and heater dialog forms that allows the

user to graphically select the object that is to be removed from the list. 5. Global Visibility has been added for solid finite elements.

6. New object types are Torus, Ogive, Scarfed Cone, Scarfed Cylinder, and Finite Differ-ence Solid Cone.

7. Defaults have been added for Orbits and Case Sets.

8. The Logic Manager has been added with objects for Array Interpolation, Bivariate Interpolation, PID controllers, and User Fortran Code.

9. The ability to plot items directly from the model browser has been added.

Thermal Desktop®:

1. Nodal initial temperatures may now be output as expressions.

2. Color by conductivity and specific heat now interpolates on temperature dependent arrays.

3. The capability to program insulation being on or off has been added.

4. Insulation can be selected to be on selected nodes of a surface as opposed to simply the entire side of a surface.

RadCAD®:

1. Heat rate calculation error criteria changed so that error is based on total absorbed and rays are shot for the nodes that cause the error.

2. Heat rate error calculations are output to the HRA file and can also be postprocessed on the model.

(30)

FloCAD®:

1. New path types are: Capil, Turbine, Compress and, Comppd. These are used to model turbines, compressors and positive displacement compressors.

2. IFace objects have been added to model walls between fluid lumps.

3. FTies objects have been added to model heat transfer directly between to lumps, with no mass exchange.

4. Path Edit Forms all updated to be tabbed.

5. Path flow area input choices expanded to include AFI/AFJ input for upstream and downstream areas.

6. Path graphics representation now defaults to be drawn using the actual flow area. A toggle icon is available to switch back and forth between this mode and the original mode where only a percentage of the screen size was used.

(31)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 4.8

General:

2. Default options for all Thermal Desktop entities have been added. Previous version only allowed the user to set the defaults for the 2d surfaces.

3. NASTRAN importer has been improved to import some thermal boundary conditions and to recognize double precision elements.

4. ANSYS® importer has been improved to import additional finite element types. 5. Visibility options for trackers and assemblies have been added.

6. Group names have been added to the selection for Thermal Desktop commands.

1. Contactor restarts have been added to speed up the calculation of contactors when the geometry or input has not changed. This restart capability works much like the radia-tion restarts.

2. A multiplier can now be specified for time dependent heating rates.

3. Natural convection pressures can be output as symbols to SINDA. This will help facil-itate changing pressures for vacuum pump down or for balloon type vehicles that rise in the atmosphere.

4. Bivariate arrays of conductivity versus pressure and temperature can be plotted. 5. Thermal Electric Coolers (TEC) sizing has been implemented.

6. Translation and Rotation pages have been added for finite difference solids. 7. Interior optical properties can be specified for finite difference solids.

RadCAD:

1. Optical properties of single nodes on a surface can now be specified. This capability is similar to the TRASYS MODPR functionality.

2. RADK calculations and output have been modified to use less memory, which results in larger models being run. RADK jobs can be approximately 30% larger in size. 3. A merge analysis groups function has been added.

(32)

FloCAD:

1. A SetFlow object is now used to create fixed flow (MFRSET, VFRSET) devices in FLUINT. This removes the mass and volumetric flow options from the pump/fan object.

2. Pump input forms have been expanded to include several new input data options including full maps. Optional use of flow coefficient (F) and head coefficient (Y) instead of volumetric flow rates (G) and heads (H). Additional unit types are also sup-ported. Flow area input is supsup-ported.

3. Tabular paths input expanded to include more units and options. 4. Lump states can be specified to be stagnant or moving.

5. More user control over Pipe surface for graphics and shape resolution. Control param-eter added to Graphics Size tab in the Preferences form. This provides the user some control over the trade off of pipe calculation speed and accuracy. Higher resolution results in longer computation times, but more fidelity in the geometric representation. 6. The RcPathRotationAxis object added to provide control over the path rotation

options in SINDA/FLUINT.

(33)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 4.7

General:

1. Color contouring of surface primitives (i.e. rectangles, disks, cones, etc.) has been added.

2. The maximum number of colors in the color bar has been increased from 10 to 15. 3. A general approach was made to allow the user to input more comments into the

model. The primary focus of this was to allow for comments on the Expression forms, which gives the user the capability to input a comment for all fields. Also note that if a comment is entered on the expression form, the field where the user double-clicked to access the expression form is displayed in a light blue. If the user defines an expres-sion, the data in the field is bolded, as it has been in previous releases of Thermal Desktop. A comment page was also added to the Case Set Properties.

4. Previous “name” or “comment” fields have been enhanced so that if the user double-clicks in these fields, a text editor window will come up, and the user may enter a com-ment of any length. The first line of these fields is also used as a descriptor name, which is shown in the model browser, and in other places.

5. Multi-Edit mode has been added to the Case Set Manager which allows the user to edit more than one Case Set at a time.

6. Filtering options have been added to find nodes that are not connected to anything, or to find nodes that are not connected to geometry.

7. Contactor graphics have been improved to show each surface from and to markers that are color coded. The from markers are drawn from the proper face which should aid in the contactors being created more accurately. The previous method of drawing lines between the from and to surfaces was deemed to be too confusing to users.

8. Area based contactors now have a ray tracing calculation option in order to speed up these calculations for the situation where normal rays from the from surface will hook up properly to the to surfaces. Tested models are running 30 times faster for these cal-culations.

9. An importer has been written to import Harvard Thermals TAS-PCB models. 10. An importer has been written to import ANSYS finite element models.

11. Utility functions for finite elements have been added to split quad elements, refine ele-ments, and shift the starting edge/node have been added.

(34)

1. Mapping capabilities have been enhanced with variable tolerancing and user definition of which entities to map to. Detailed diagnostics are also output which tell users which surface a point was mapped to.

2. Conductors can now be set to use natural convection heat transfer correlations that are available as SINDA subroutines.

3. Insulation has been added FD Solid Bricks, Cylinders, and Spheres.

4. A component has been added to aid in the evaluation of Thermal Electric Coolers (TECs) has been added.

5. Insulation properties can now recede.

6. A global parameter has been added to quickly turn off all surfaces.

7. Density and conductivity scaling factors have been added to the thin shell primitives, as well as the finite elements.

RadCAD:

1. Postprocessing of Time Average, Direct Absorbed, and Reflected Absorbed heating rates has been added.

2. The planet temperature used for orbital heating rates can now be specified for both the dark and the sun sides of the planet. This can aid in lunar moon missions.

3. A button was added to allow users to disable outputting radks to space. This removes the need to place dummy surfaces around a model to filter out radks to space.

4. Radk summary that was printed at the bottom of the .k file is now printed to a tab delimited file, which is easily loaded into Excel. The file contains a list of all nodes in the analysis group.

5. A complete radk summary is now generated when the run is complete. This summary details how many radks were generated, as well as how many were filtered out. Also, the number of nodes with large B_ij’s to inactive nodes is also printed, as well as the number of nodes that see inactive surfaces.

6. Radk jobs in the Case Set Properties will now run an overlapping surfaces check once the radk job completes. This should help users identify problem areas in radiation models.

7. Solar Flux can now be input as a function of time.

8. Integrated emissivity can now be a function of temperature. This functionality only works for the dynamic mode so that radks can be updated as the temperature change.

(35)

FloCAD:

1. Pipes with walls made from a list of surfaces/solids. Allows variable flow area along the pipe.

2. Ability to add Clone Lumps.

3. Natural Convection routines are selectable from list in User Defined Ties.

4. Postprocessing of fluid models greatly enhanced in the model browser. Tabulations added for lumps and paths. User controlled sorting of output.

5. Ability to merge lumps. 6. Twin path control from GUI. 7. Insulation option added for Pipes.

(36)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 4.6

General:

1. This version is compatible with AutoCAD 2004, as well as AutoCAD 2000, 2000i, and 2002.

2. Improved graphics interaction that fixes previous picking options for nodes and enti-ties that draw text.

3. Thermal entities are now recognized from External References. This capability makes it much easier for more than one person to work on different parts of the same model at the same time.

4. Filter box allows for multiple selection of types. This facilitates changing visibility and node numbers for more than a single type with a single command.

5. The Splash Screen automatically disappears which facilitates the loading of large models.

6. Various changes to the Model Browser have been made. The iconified Model Browser will be moved to the upper left. Selection in the Model Browser is automatically updated in the AutoCAD graphics window. If the user saves the model with the Model Browser display, the Model Browser will come up when the model is reloaded. Model Browser now defaults to the AutoUpdate model being on.

1. Commands have been added to show the calculated points for contact and contactors. This helps in the verification that they are set up correctly.

2. Improved Heater Logic to hold temperatures constant during steady state, and also to output heater summary logic for transient. This logic shows total power used, total on time, and number of cycles.

3. The Cond/Cap page now has an option to specify to generate nodes as arithmetic. 4. FD Solids (Brick, Cylinder, Sphere) have scaling factors to vary the conductivity in

the u, v, and w directions.

5. Model Browser has the capability to show some of the SINDA-like output for

TPRINT, QPRINT, CPRINT, NODTAB, NODMAP type of functions. The capability to find how much energy is transferred between submodels has also been added. 6. Pressure dependent insulation conductors have been added.

7. Translation and Rotation pages have been added to the ‘conic’ type of surfaces. The pages will facilitate the parameterization of the surface locations without the creation of an assembly.

(37)

8. Thermophysical properties to account for melting and freezing of materials has been added. This capability takes advantage of the SINDA subroutine FUSION.

9. NASTRAN data mapping for transient cases has been added.

RadCAD:

1. User can control if Heatrate Output is the classical DA11MC calls or the LOADQ sub-routine.

2. The spacecraft can be shown at multiple positions in the orbit view, at the same time. 3. Trackers can be disabled on a per radiation job basis from the Case Set manager. 4. Time Offsets can be added to articulated radks and heating rate outputs, which

facili-tates the linking of multiple orbits.

5. Users can add customized logic before and after articulated radk or heating rate output logic.

FloCAD:

1. Pipe objects have been improved to show full 3D representations with the outer shape being defined by the user.

2. Pipe objects also have full radiation capabilities.

3. Improved heat pipe modeling with calls to the SINDA/FLUINT HEATPIPE2 routines, as well as the proper calls to HPGLOC.

(38)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 4.5

1. New Surfaces are Ellipsoid, Elliptic Cone, Elliptic Cylinder, and Offset Paraboloid. 2. New Finite Difference solids are Brick, Cylinder, and Sphere.

3. Tools to facilitate making movies (avi files) for postprocessing and viewing the space-craft in orbit.

4. A new “contactor” object allows for creating conductors between groups of surfaces. 5. Import of Material and Optical Properties.

6. Quick commands have been added to “Toggle the Background Color” and to save the graphics area to a bitmap file.

7. Ability to change the lists of objects that are defined on conductor, heatload, heater, and tie forms.

8. Symbol manager commands to purge unused symbols and to rename symbols have been implemented.

RadCAD:

1. Free Molecular Heating (FMH) algorithms have been added.

2. Quick checks to allow for finding surfaces that overlap to aid in radiation model debugging.

FloCAD:

1. Pipe objects added to FloCAD allowing easy subdivision of lines into paths and vol-umes. Types of pipes include heat pipes, fluid pipes with walls, fluid pipes without walls, and wall only (which can be a solid ‘wire’).

2. FloCAD has new path types for orifices and table driven pressure drops (Tabular). 3. Output of expressions to SINDA/FLUINT from Nodes, Conductors, Lumps, and

Paths.

(39)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 4.4

1. Compatibility with AutoCAD 2000i - Please note that all previous models of Thermal Desktop that contain finite elements must first be saved in Thermal Desktop Version 4.4 before being loaded into AutoCAD 2000i.

2. Dynamic SINDA allows the user to manipulate Thermal Desktop from SINDA and reload conductors, capacitance, and heating rates. Must have SINDA 4.4 or greater to use. This means quick access to optimize locations of components, correlation of emissivity, reliability determination of a system, temperature dependent emissivity (greyness must be satisfied), and many other things.

3. Ellipse surfaces have been added. 4. Import/Export of TSS geometries.

5. Improved radk culling options that can limit the number of radks output to SINDA. 6. FloCAD FK Calculator for components like valves, screens, and bends.

7. FloCAD capability for multiple constituent models. 8. Case Set Log file.

9. Case Set running in different directory.

10. Case Set control over which submodels are built in the SINDA model. 11. Color coded SINDA text editor.

12. Model browser list by contact.

13. Model browser List and Highlight of selected objects.

14. Surface editing filter functions to filter on “Normal Angle to a Point”, and also “Nor-mal Parallel to Vector”.

15. Planetary radiation input as flux instead of temperature.

16. Documented sec.tion on AutoCAD graphics settings to improve interactive perfor-mance.

(40)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 3.3

The following new capabilities have been added.

1. The introduction of the FloCAD application has been added.

2. Fast spinning of a sub-assembly of the thermal model for radiation calculations. 3. Significant speed improvements for large model (> 5000 nodes) radiation calculations. 4. Speed improvements for contact calculations.

5. Auto Save feature added to the Case Set Manager. 6. Import/Export of correspondence data.

7. STEP-TAS Import/Export functions.

8. STEP-209 Import/Export capability for finite elements. 9. Color by surface thickness.

10. Improved Model Browser icons.

(41)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 3.2

1. Symbol/Registers input capabilities that can be used for everything from sizing, place-ment, properties, conductor values, etc. These symbols can be changed for each Case Set to be solved.

2. Articulator/Tracker upgrades, including user programmability, rotational, and transla-tional movement.

3. Model Browser upgrades including, non-modal form (stays up while in the back-ground), multiple select using Ctrl and Shift.

4. New orbit capabilities including latitude/longitude/altitude input, and simple vector list input used for trajectory type heating.

5. Additional ray plotting criteria that easily allows the user to find how a surface sees an inactive node.

(42)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 3.1

1. Conductors from a single node to multiple surfaces has been added to facilitate con-vection modeling.

2. Articulators can now be functional between user specified orbit positions. 3. Heat Loads may be specified.

4. Heaters may be specified.

5. Cut and Paste between drawing files has been enabled. 6. Enhancements to the model browser.

7. Thermal Desktop Polygon surfaces have been added. 8. Oct Cell Optimizer routine has been added.

9. Super Networks.

10. Ability to output in older SINDA type formats. 11. Redesigned icons and toolbars.

12. X-Y plotting capability.

13. Node Id and active side display enhanced.

14. Vector List Orbit definition for modeling trajectory orbits. 15. Arbitrary source input for modeling IR/Sol Lamps.

(43)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop 3.0

1. Case Set Manager takes analysis from CAD model to temperatures with the click of a button

2. Anisotropic materials have been added. 3. Area contact conductance.

4. Edge contact conductance.

5. Ability to set surface property defaults.

6. Extrusion and Revolving of planar elements into solids. 7. Mapping a solid between planar meshes.

8. Edge nodes for conics.

9. Color by material properties (conductivity, capacitance, and density). 10. Model mapping of temperatures to structural models with different meshes.

(44)

Release Notes: Thermal Desktop Beta

The following new capabilities have been added. 1. Thermophysical Property Database has been added. 2. Network nodes.

3. Network conductors. 4. Network Elements.

5. SINDA conductance/capacitance output can be generated for custom surfaces and ele-ments.

6. Insulation objects can easily be modeled. 7. Units facility has been added.

8. Additional Import functionality from Nevada, I-deas FEM, and NASTRAN. 9. Expanded Find A Node features allow editing of data and only showing specific

nodes.

10. Free Face algorithm to surface coat solid element to allow for radiation have been added.

11. Free Edge algorithm has been added to show element free edges.

12. The user can now filter a selection of objects based on submodel, material/optical property, and analysis groups.

13. The user can turn the visibility of objects off and on. 14. The user can hide solid interior faces.

(45)

Release Notes Version 2.1

The following new capabilities have been added to Version 2.1

1. The user may now model variable geometry with the use of trackers and articulators. 2. The model may be viewed from the Sun or planet and stepped through the orbit to

ver-ify orientation and variable geometry.

3. The user may view the vehicle with the orbit.

4. Single mouse click to step to next or previous time in postprocessing dataset, simulta-neous with updating variable geometry, position in orbit, and/or views from sun or planet.

5. Simple orbits may now be defined by inputting beta angle and altitude. 6. Heliocentric orbits can now be analyzed.

7. Refraction capabilities have been added.

8. Angular dependent optical properties have been added. 9. Toolbars for common commands have been added.

10. Ray plotting has been added with energy level shown in color and different line styles to indicate rays to space, surface-to-surface reflections, and rays from heating sources. 11. All user preferences are now saved from session to session.

12. Complete users manual incorporated into context aware on-line help. 13. Color verification of optical property values.

14. Enhanced SINDA/FLUINT output options for heating rates and radks. 15. TRASYS export option.

(46)

Release Notes Version 2.0

Version 2.0 is the first commercial release of RadCAD. Significant changes have been made since version 1.2 both in new features and in improving existing functions. Version 2.0 requires AutoCAD Release 14. Operation under Windows95 is supported, but maximum performance will be obtained under Windows NT 3.51/4.0.

The following capabilities have been added to Version 2.0: 1. Full Monte Carlo based orbital heating rates.

2. A fast progressive radiosity based orbital heating rate method with error optimization. 3. New orbit specification and viewing features.

4. Active side displays using colors, node ID’s, and arrows.

5. Color postprocessing of SINDA/FLUINT save sets, text files, and RadCAD radk, vf, and heating rate databases.

6. Node correspondence.

7. Variable nodal breakdown and arbitrary node naming. 8. Enhanced TRASYS importer.

9. A redesigned user interface making use of tabbed dialog boxes and tree based brows-ers.

Also new for Version 2.0 is the “demand” loading feature. This feature automatically loads RadCAD whenever RadCAD objects are detected in the current AutoCAD drawing file, or the first time a RadCAD command is issued for new drawings. All changes and new features are fully documented in this manual.

(47)

Release Notes Version 1.2

Version 1.2 incorporates the following custom surface types: 1. Cone 2. Cylinder 3. Disk 4. Rectangle 5. Sphere 6. Paraboloid

Visual representation of the surfaces has been improved. The arcs used to draw curved surfaces are optimized based on the size of the entity. More segments are used as the view is zoomed, so that the curved surfaces always appear curved, rather than consisting of connected linear segments. The number of segments are reduced as the image is zoomed smaller to improve efficiency.

Dotted lines have been added to indicate the centers of the nodal regions. These centerlines may be used to select surfaces and eliminates the problem of uniquely selecting surfaces with adjacent edges.

End point snap modes have been defined for all nodal centers and corners of nodal regions. Center point snap modes have been defined for the cone, cylinder, disk, sphere, and parab-oloid.

A significant feature implemented in this version is the incorporation of a unique progressive radiosity algorithm to generate radiation exchange factors directly from view factor data. The method provides significant performance advantages over the raytracing method when diffuse properties dominate. Work is in progress to incorporate specular properties into progressive radiosity algorithm.

(48)

Release Notes Version 1.1e

1. In addition to the cylinder added in Version 1.1, the following RadCAD custom sur-faces were added: disk, rectangle, sphere.

2. End Point snap modes were implemented for all custom surfaces. End points are defined at the center of each nodal region, and at the corners of each nodal boundary. 3. Center point snap modes were implemented for the disk, cylinder, and sphere. A single

center point is defined at the origin for the disk and the sphere. their center points are defined for the cylinder at the base, top, and mid-point along the cylinder’s centerline. 4. The drawing speed and visual appearance of the custom surfaces was improved.

Dot-ted lines are used to indicate the nodal centers. This also allows immediate identifica-tion of surfaces in the model that are custom surfaces, rather than built-in AutoCAD surfaces.

(49)

Release Notes Version 1.1

The following changes have been incorporated into version 1.1:

1. During the initial loading of RadCAD, initialization of the orbit data is deferred until an orbit command is issued. This speeds the initial loading process.

2. The main RadCAD drop-down list has been redesigned to accommodate the new cus-tom entities and to implement new features.

3. The “Surface Groups” concept has been renamed to “RadCAD Analysis Groups”, to better indicate the purpose and function of the group. New features have been added: a. A default analysis group may be set to be used for new surfaces and for model

checking.

b. Unused analysis groups may be purged.

c. Analysis groups may be renamed, removed, and copied.

d. AutoCAD groups may be created from the RadCAD analysis groups. Creating AutoCAD groups from the RadCAD groups allows the set of surfaces to be used anywhere a selection set is needed. Enter “group”, followed by the name of the analysis group at any selection set prompt to automatically select all surfaces in the analysis group. This feature can be used to move analysis groups to different layers for better visibility, change colors, or as input to modifying thermal model data or node resequencing.

4. The Submodel functions have been moved to the main pulldown. The new features that have been added for this version are:

a. A default submodel may be set to be used for new surfaces.

b. A purge function has been added to remove any unused submodel names.

c. A rename function has been added to automatically rename all nodes in one sub-model to be in another subsub-model.

d. AutoCAD groups may be created consisting of the surfaces that have nodes that belong to a selected SINDA/FLUINT submodel. Like analysis groups, AutoCAD groups may be created from submodels to aid in visualization and modification of the model data.

5. The “Node Properties” concept has been renamed to “Thermal Model Data” and func-tions have been grouped under the heading “Surface” in the main drop-down list. This was done to provide a clearer organization of the functions possible on surfaces and also to accommodate the introduction of the new custom conic surface types. Specific new features are:

a. The “Thermal Model Data” form has been redesigned for a better look and feel, and to accommodate the new custom surfaces which allow a multiple nodes on the surface.

(50)

c. The “Resequence ID's” form has been redesigned to operate on nodes in a given submodel and selection set, rather than sequencing across submodels. The form has been redesigned for better look and feel.

6. New features have been added to “Model Checking”:

a. The Hemi and Cone options have been combined into a single option, “3D Mark-ers”. This option will display hemispheres on both sides of a surface when both sides are active and cones on the active side and cylinders on the inactive side when only one side is active. This allows the active state of both sides of a sur-face to be determined instantly when using 3D rendered views.

b. The “Preferences” form has been redesigned to allow the option of using the default analysis group or prompting for an analysis group each time. An option also exists to always use all surfaces in the analysis group or to prompt for a sub-set of surfaces. This will speed model building when making iterative changes on a single analysis group.

7. The “Calculations” functions have been expanded and improved:

a. Run-time and output parameters are now stored in the drawing database and are saved from session to session.

b. A space node may be redefined other than “SPACE.1”

c. An option has been added to the run-time and output parameters to output or not output radk or view factor data after calculations.

d. Radks and view factors may be output independently of the calculations. This allows different cutoff factors or numbering to be used without having to re-run calculations.

e. The time to generate SINDA/FLUINT radks for large models has been signifi-cantly reduced.

f. Listing data has been added to the radk and view factor output files to summarize the interchange factors to the node itself, any interchange with inactive surfaces, and to list the area, number of rays shot, the effective emissivity, and the total of all the radks/view factors for a given node and the corresponding percentage of the maximum that the total represents.

g. The intersection algorithms have been further optimized, resulting in shorter cal-culation times.

h. The prompting for appending or replacing an existing dataset has been improved. 8. In order to be consistent with the AutoCAD definition of surfaces, the 3D closed Poly-line is no longer supported. A 3D Face object can be used instead of the polyPoly-line for constructing arbitrary polygons.

9. A custom thermal “cylinder” type has been added. This surface combines the ease of use of TRASYS and TSS-like high level primitives with the power of CAD opera-tions. The surface geometry may be redefined by selecting grips to modify the height, radius, start and ending angles, and the orientation. The grips may be used with all of the AutoCAD point selection techniques including snaps, intersections, and the geom-etry calculator. The surface may also be subdivided into more than one thermal node.

(51)

Release Notes: Version 1.0

Initial Release

This first release allows the calculation of SINDA/FLUINT compatible radiation exchange networks using geometry created with AutoCAD®*, allows importation and analysis of TRASYS models, and supports the creation and visualization of orbit definitions. This version also supports the creation and manipulation of optical property databases.

View factor and/or radiation exchange data is computed using a Monte Carlo technique, coupled with a unique and innovative oct-cell acceleration method exclusive to CRTech. Filtering options are available to reduce the size of the radiation network passed on to SINDA/FLUINT.

This version accepts the following types of AutoCAD surfaces for radiation analysis: closed 3D polylines, 3D faces, 3D surface meshes, and 3D polyface meshes. These meshes may be created from user-defined points, predefined AutoCAD surface types, ruled surfaces, tabulated surfaces, surfaces of revolution, or edge-defined surface meshes. Surfaces may have diffuse, specular, and transparent optical characteristics.

(52)

List of Figures

Figure 1-1 Case Set Manager Dialog Box ... 1-1 Figure 1-2 Thermal Desktop Model Browser ... 1-3 Figure 1-3 Grip points for graphically editing mathematically precise conic surfaces 1-5 Figure 1-4 Super network reduction complicated part into a simple SINDA network 1-6 Figure 1-5 Conductors Between Non-Aligned Edges/Areas Automatically Calculated 1-6 Figure 1-6 Spacecraft with articulating arrays that automatically track the sun ... 1-7 Figure 1-7 Orbital display allows visual display of vehicle at each orbit position ... 1-9 Figure 1-8 Forced air convective cooling of passages in an electronic box ... 1-10 Figure 1-9 Fluid cooling of cold plate assembly ... 1-10 Figure 1-10 FloCAD component selector for commonly used fittings ... 1-11 Figure 2-1 Thermal Desktop Menus and Toolbars ... 2-1 Figure 2-2 Thermal Menu ... 2-3 Figure 2-3 TD Mesher Menu ... 2-5 Figure 2-4 Measures Menu ... 2-6 Figure 2-5 Object Selection Filter Dialog Box ... 2-7 Figure 2-6 Thermal Desktop Model Browser ... 2-9 Figure 2-7 Thermal Desktop Model Browser Tree Right-click Menu Options ... 2-13 Figure 2-8 Thermal Desktop Model Browser Output Field Right-click Menu Options 2-14 Figure 2-9 Thermal Desktop Model Browser automatic subdivision of large branches 2-16 Figure 2-10 Tag Set Manager and Create New Tag Set dialogs ... 2-23 Figure 2-11 User Preferences Dialog Box Units Tab ... 2-26 Figure 2-12 User Preferences Dialog Box Graphics Visibility Tab ... 2-27 Figure 2-13 Triangular Element with nodal boundaries ... 2-29 Figure 2-14 User Preferences Dialog Box Graphics Size Tab ... 2-30 Figure 2-15 User Preferences Dialog Box Thermal Analyzer Tab ... 2-32 Figure 2-16 User Preferences Dialog Box Advanced Tab ... 2-32 Figure 2-17 Contact CRTech Support dialog ... 2-37 Figure 2-18 Tabular Input Dialog Box ... 2-38 Figure 2-19 Bivariate Table Input Dialog Box ... 2-39 Figure 2-20 Grip points for graphically editing mathematically precise conic surfaces 2-39 Figure 2-21 Entering a Symbolic Expression in a Dialog Box Input Field ... 2-42 Figure 2-22 Expression editor comments ... 2-43 Figure 2-23 Example of Network Element Logic (for a Path) ... 2-48 Figure 2-24 Advanced Text Editor Window ... 2-54 Figure 2-25 Edit Mesh Displayer window ... 2-55 Figure 3-1 Edit Optical Properties Dialog Box (Create/Edit Property Definitions) .... 3-2 Figure 3-2 Edit Optical Property Dialog Box to Define Optical Property Values ... 3-3 Figure 3-3 Refraction Definition ... 3-4 Figure 3-4 Refraction Through a Solid ... 3-5 Figure 3-5 Angular Dependent Property Input Dialog Box ... 3-6 Figure 3-6 Wavelength-Dependent Optical Properties ... 3-7